Civil Law, Torts, and Privacy Rights
What the exam tests
This domain tests civil exposure: torts that arise from investigation methods and privacy rights that limit what may be collected or published. The exam favors fact patterns where a lawful purpose does not automatically make every method lawful.
Core concepts
- Trespass: unauthorized entry onto land or interference with possession.
- Intrusion upon seclusion: highly offensive intrusion into a private place or private affairs.
- Public disclosure of private facts: widespread publication of intimate, non-newsworthy information.
- False light and defamation: misleading or false statements that harm reputation.
- Appropriation: commercial use of another’s name or likeness.
- Negligent investigation and malicious prosecution: claims that can follow careless or vindictive work.
Worked example
A private investigator photographs a subject through an open front window from a public sidewalk. The sidewalk location is public, but aiming into a bedroom and capturing intimate activity supports an intrusion claim. The reasoning separates location from expectation: a public vantage does not erase the subject’s privacy in a home interior. A photograph of the subject walking to the car would be far stronger.
Traps
Equating “public place” with unlimited capture; assuming consent to one search covers later publication; publishing to pressure a settlement; and confusing a true statement with a harmless one when the context is misleading.